Sunday, 9 March 2014

Day 59: Starstruck

What went well?

Got a pleasant surprise in my email inbox. Last week, after Adam Grant's guest lecture, I gave him a gratitude card because I genuinely wanted to appreciate him for his work with Give and Take, the most influential and inspirational book I read last year. I didn't leave my email address because I wanted it to be a genuine act of giving with no expectations of a reply, so I was very surprised when I got an email reply from him today, thanking me for the card! I was impressed that he must have actually looked me up on the Penn database to find my email address. Definitely a giver. It made my day.

My friend's friend is in DC next week and offered us a place to stay on Tuesday night at her aunt's! Super generous.

Wrote over 2300 words for my sociology of education mid-term.

Packed my stuff for my spring break trip, and I'm happy to say that I can fit everything for a whole week (Monday - Saturday) into a normal-sized backpack!! Travelling light just makes travelling so much better.

What did I learn?

I'm weird. Haha. I saw a squirrel run by and I was like, "awww..." (because they're still cute!) and someone walking by looked at me very bemusedly. It was a funny expression.

There's a certain point with writing where you just hit the wall. I literally only started writing at about 12.15pm and by about 3.30pm I'd produced 90% of the words I was going to write for the rest of the day. I spent the rest of the day doing mindless work for my research paper (collecting data points, quotes with the word "mindfulness" on Google Books), singing practice, and managed to spend another 15 minutes writing another 300 or so words. The thing is, writing is really fast and you can produce a lot of words in a short amount of time (I write in 25-minute pomodoro blocks) when you have all the notes in front of you - it's just about summarising, interpreting, and synthesising - but the prerequisites are motivation and some quality of mental capacity available at that stage (not even just energy or concentration) that had been exhausted. 2300 words is still pretty good though!

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What's this blog about?

Hi! I'm Jessie, in my final year of my BA (Psychology) at the University of Melbourne. But before I finish up there, I'm heading off on exchange at the University of Pennsylvania (hence the name of the blog - Daily Pennings, haha) for a semester. So there are two main reasons why this blog exists: For others, and for myself.This blog exists so that my friends and family can see what I'm up to if they're curious. I also hope that it can serve as a resource for other students who are considering an exchange (or a degree) at Penn, in terms of the culture of the school and the US, and the practicalities of being abroad.Essentially, though, this blog will serve as a public journal. I plan to spend just 10 minutes at the end of each day writing a quick, simple summary of the day, including highlights and something I learned. This way, it'll be an accurate reflection of what actually happened on exchange, and it will also encourage me to reflect daily, which to me is important for self-awareness and living consciously, and therefore making the most of the exchange (and life), hopefully.If you find anything here interesting or useful, or if you're curious about anything, please leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you! :)

About Me

I am motivated by the potential for psychological research to generate rigorous, reproducible insights on human flourishing. My research interests fall broadly within two themes: (1) the processes that link personality with well-being, in the moment and across the lifespan, and (2) the motivating effects of moral emotions (e.g., gratitude, compassion, elevation) on prosocial behaviours.